Unspoken words

Prolog

Have you ever felt yourself lost, completely lost in the walls of your apartment, in the streets of your town where you have lived all your conscious life, in the whole universe? I have, now I am lying on the floor with empty bottles around me as I strangled all the content out of them, some kind of pills as I believe they could burn down all the damage I have done to my body and empty boxes of pizza and some packages of food, it is my method to kill any human emotions about regret, sadness and self-blame at least for couple of hours. The walls of my apartment are so cold and lifeless that I wish I could escape from here, the ambience is suppressing. I hate this place it is striking in me total desperation, unworthiness to life and the longing to erase myself from the face of this planet. I foster abhorrence to every corner of this lodging. Only yesterday I was over the moon, the whole idea of moving here brought me excitement and a particular feeling. And what about now? I wish I had never moved, I wish I had never made a deal about this flat. However, I can’t move back, there is no step back as the decision had been made and its reverse would denote disaster. I am alone, I mean not alone on daily basis. I have parents, a brother, a cat by my side, but loneliness is inside. It is like being on the deserted island with people around you who don’t notice you, who are similar to each other that is creepy. Sometimes we don’t need the hell big amount of people around us in order to feel secure, safe and being at the right place. Few human beings are able to change your life and all about it in one day, in one hour. But I have only one who is able to revive me, the thing is he isn’t here anymore. Sometimes we only need the very one human being who we wish to watch every day without a cessation whose presence makes everything to be right. In my decadent and confused world this person was a remedy to heal, a placebo to take every day without recommended dose, a drug which in the end causes consequences. That will be my story about, which consequences attachments implicate. The story which has shaken my world and maybe it will shake yours, you never know.

Chapter 1

That day I was completely worn out like any other days though. My current job was innervating me to death. Day by day I had the same routine waking up early in the morning and finishing working at ungodly hour for the salary I couldn’t even afford a pair of new pants. In my thoughts I was quitting it every single day but the following morning I turned back there again.

I put on weight, my health was in a mess and the purpose of life had gone away with the summer breeze long ago. The only thing which was driven me to existence was to be independent from my mum I meant in the independence of not taking money from her and my severely ill friend who I happened to substitute, I couldn’t abandon people without support who mean a lot to me, so I grinned and bore it.

Anyway let’s get back to that actual day, the day that didn’t forebode anything. Actually, nothing particular happened but later than I realized that it was a harbinger of my complete change.

I had to fill in again, so there were two boys’ names written in my timetable and I was thinking: “So, okay, what are you going to do with two children? What might they know? What level could they have?” With those contemplations going on I was climbing the stairs when I suddenly saw those “children” who turned out to be 19 years old. For a second I was frustrated as I hadn’t anticipated at all such grown up kids, then I pull myself together and said – whatever.

I noticed immediately the arrogant looks on their faces and the scent of coolness, they spread out of themselves. Their looks were alike hipsters. One was wearing a shirt and jeans with a vans bag and tattooed, the other one had a simpler look but still there was something in his eyes which questioned everything.

I was also offered to keep those guys for myself as it was their first lesson and they had no idea who Alice was, so I didn’t mind and asked them if they were okay with it. They looked puzzled but agreed in a heartbeat due to my abilities to hold the lesson engaging and absorbing. Moreover, I usually got on well with my students. So I asked them to call me just by name and stay away from all these formalities (the thing I actually do with any new student who is closer to my age) and add me on Facebook in case I need to provide them with additional information. Generally, I used this scheme with all my teenager and adult students as I reckon that as long as you are a friend to them, they are friendly in your regards and the learning process is much easier and funnier in that way. Otherwise you are doomed to be hated or represent total indifference to your personality.

“So, okay guys, we’ve finished for today. If you have any questions or anything else to ask, I am always there for you or you can call me, whatever you want, I am willing to help all the time.” I said.

“Okayyyy”. was the answer and I could clearly see their bewildered faces and started thinking how the idea was wrong to offer them such ways of reaching me outside the classroom hours on the very first day but I didn’t care much as you remember I didn’t give a shit in the world about most of the things that time.

They ushered from the room thanking me for the lesson and telling their goodbyes while I was comprised by irksome thoughts:

“I am sure they will go to Alice immediately when she comes back to her working schedule again, I wasn’t convincing at all and this stupid proposal about adding me on Facebook, they are 19, who wants to have a teacher among his friends at this age! It is embarrassing”.

Then my thoughts reversed to the unnoticeable fact of how handsome they both were. However, I was trying to suppress those dreary thoughts. I knew where such cogitations led me – to a dreamy possibility of being in a relationship with one of them. It was out of question as the last experience of being in a romantic encounter with a student had shown nothing but the waste of time. Still, I was all about to describe my first impression of those guys.

Both of them I saw as arrogant types who knew what they wanted from life, living it to the max and didn’t care what on earth was happening with others, those hipsters types, pejorative and pretentious but at the same time with a complex worldview and value of system in their eyes.

One of them had black pitch hair and the same eyes colour. He wasn’t bulky but possessed some muscles which made him look more masculine in the comparison to his friend. He was wearing a dark blue sweater and jeans, nothing extra particular but still in the latest fashion. He had an enchanting smile and something deceptive in his facial features but it didn’t push you away from him but quite the opposite it appealed you in every way. At the same time I saw a ubiquitously simple boy in him under his mask of steadfastness. Actually, later it turned out to be the truth.

The second one was the strange type you might see on the internet, kind of a tumbler boy, so mysterious, so innocent, so mesmerizing you became weak at the knees. He smelled as tangerines on New Year’s eve. Could you imagine a person who would possibly have a scent of a fruit in a way not even spreading it, you smelled it on your subconscious level of perception. His uneven face was so perfectly sculptured with flawless pale skin which brought you the sensation of early autumn, when the sun shines but doesn’t bring the warm anymore, when the leaves are already yellow with scarlet pimples spread around but not wrinkled yet. The stage when rain sprinkles into your face with pleasant fatigue and recklessness. Every his movement was delicate and subtle but at the same time feverish with harsh squish as though you were facing an angel with devilish inclinations. He didn’t look at you or stared he glared in a way he wanted to show that he was capturing everything at his sight. So, when you looked at him, you did not experience butterflies in your stomach, there were tarantulas that were scraping inside you trying to find a way out but without a mere range of success. Did you know that the most species of tarantulas were brown? So, was he. He had a brownish walnut hair colour, as had been mine before I used too much hydrogen peroxide on it and I guessed the chemicals didn’t only have impact on my hair but on my brains as well. Looking at his hair immediately induced the desire to stroke it until the end of this world. Its waviness made you all your demons went out and officiated macabre activities.

His name didn’t summon for something unusual or clamorously famous, it was a typical name you could hear in everyday situations but for me it was ephemerical, something beyond common use, I was enchanted by it so hard that each time I looked at the list of absence in order to spell it correctly, in order to glance at it and feel the vibrations coming out of it. I longed for saying this name every day, in each situation I could. My heart was pounding like mad when I said it again and again. You might think that I was off my rocker. In reality, yes, I was, as you didn’t meet something extraterrestrial in your boring routine life every now and then.

However, he wasn’t my type at all, such subtle in the appearance boys need the same types of girls, which I was not even closer to it. Furthermore, I was into muscled boys who had some interest in keeping themselves fit, not those anorexic-model like ones. Besides my “not giving a fuck to anything in this world state” didn’t leave me at all. Coming back home I declined any thought I could have on the subject of these two boys. Plus my stepfather’s alcohol addiction always got me back to reality. In a short, he had hardships which he poured into vodka or something else in order to release stress but this “remedy” quickly took him into its possession and all his aggression and view of world unjustness to him reflected on me, mum and then on my younger brother, a.k.a. his son.

When I was a child first years of our mutual habitation made me believe that he was going to change, that he would become the man my mother had loved once and he did some steps towards his rehabilitation. But nothing apprised improvement, he was getting worse with each event happening in his life that the drinking became a weekly habit. I regarded him as abominable stuff, I branded him as the most perfidious person in my life who I was not actually afraid of wishing to die to, I desired for his complete dismay, failure in everything he was doing and most importantly my mum leaving him for good. Every time they had arguments, the threats of divorcement jumped out of the box, they were so juicy for me, that I used to gloat such moments and rewind them in my head every single moment I had in possession.

Anyway no expectations of mine came to the reality. Most of the times I just wished either were dead or had escaped there where I could have been truly happy and my mum wouldn’t have got all these torment moments of life with only short interludes of happiness, she didn’t deserve it. But what could a ten year old child do? When she herself desired to be protected, contriving the impossible ways out in her head and trying to imagine that one day a person would come and save her from the hardiness of life. That was how I started to develop a habit of seeing the only solution in other people, it was how my attachment to other human beings began to form.

If we dig deep down, my exigency of other people being around me was unbearable. I always wanted to have a special male friend who in the moments of difficulty would have come and listened to me, comforted me and tell the words and would like to hear or just hug me and all the pain would have subsided, all the fears would have gone. I was particularly interested in a male friend as I didn’t have one, well, one time I had one but I happened not to notice him, typical of me. Plus, being a girl I guess I wanted to feel a kind of protection which only a male could give. Only at the age of 22 years I comprehended that I didn’t actually need that special friend, but we will return to that later.

I had two classmates who were incredibly thick as thieves; I hit it off with them as well. However I never shared my story of alcoholic abuse at the family to somebody. It was stifling my breath, constricting my throat and strangling out the ability of speaking to anyone about that matter, as I clearly understood how judgmental people were, what they were going to think about me and stuff, I would be riddled and ashamed. So, I just hung out with the guys enjoying their company and loving the feeling of happiness I got each time I turned out to be with them.

One day it was so cold that your face could easily cover with chilblains and even in the warmest boots you could perceive the torture of frosts that it was quite a task to throw your feet into those boots as in the street your feet went numb and toes became swelled and raw. The school was cancelled that day because of those frosts but grabbing all my courage and the willingness of not getting bored I went to one of this boy’s house. I lived 4 kilometers from him, so I had to overcome a passage through the woods, as usually I had to surmount in order to come to school but that time I didn’t even notice the distance. This boy was fond of cooking, so you would always find any kind of treats at his kitchen. His name was Marcus, by the way. To my surprise when I finally reached my destination the other boy – Ben was also there, and the fun got started.

“Hello Michaela!”, they said.

“Hello guys, how is it going?”,was my response.

“Pretty good, we are brewing tea. Would you like some?”, Marcus asked.

“Sure and those cookies as well.”, I never hesitated to ask food.

But before drinking tea, Marcus offered us to eat mash potatoes that he had cooked before our arrival, and they were particularly delicious, I didn’t know how a 12 year old could be such a talented cooker. I couldn’t recollect what we were conversing about while we were eating, but one fragment I remembered precisely.

“You know what, yesterday my neighbors were singing karaoke, so the whole evening I was listening to a song about felt boots.”, I said.

“About felt boooots, ahahhahahahaha.” Ben couldn’t help laughing. “Felt boots, no way.” His tea started to come out through his nose as he wasn’t able to control his laughing fit. He was even constricted to put off his brackets. That time if you had brackets you were automatically considered to be uncool, but I found a beauty in them and wished for ones but the Mother Nature gifted me with a good teeth shape. I don’t know why but this meaningless conversation fixed in my mind so tight that I am still allured by it.

“I will show you my secret den” said Marcus, and we followed him to his room.

“This is it, basically, you removed the bottom of the sofa and lean it a bit to the wall, so that you have the space to get in there, here I tell all my secrets and preserve the important information but you are the first who I shared it with as you are my friends.” he continued.

“Wow, that’s cool.” Ben and I gasped as we were climbing there.

Later, the drunken tea reminded of itself, so I needed to use a secret chamber, obviously boys prevented me to use it properly by saying childish comments so I ended up finishing the process at my home.

After this encounter, I had to pack my bags and got to a sanatorium to cure some of my chronic diseases but before I went, Marcus‘d given me a valentine’s card beforehand as I was to spend this holiday there. However, the hebdomadal interest of my condition evoked Ben, he wrote me continuously even though it was not that cheap at that time as the mobile phones had only started to spread among youngsters but he did it anyway. I was blind enough to evaluate it because I was charmed by another guy at the sanatorium who didn’t give me even a hint that he might like me. As it happens in life we like someone who doesn’t like us, and somebody who likes us, we don’t like. Eventually, Ben started to despise me and our relationship was of two guys who liked sarcasm and that was how it ended when we finished school.

As for Marcus, he entered a military establishment after the 8th form, changed beyond recognition and we terminated any possible interaction between us. Despite this I am still of good views on both of the guys, it doesn’t matter what was between us they are the people who brought the happiness into my life at some point even if I happened not to notice it from time to time. I respect everyone who entered into my life and left his footprints.

Chapter 2

Next lesson was on Thursday, I hadn’t thought much about these guys in the previous days. However, one of them added me on the Facebook, the other didn’t, so all the necessary information I needed to transmit them I did by the means of this very boy. I started contemplating why the other boy hadn’t added me but then I came to conclusion that he was that arrogant dandy type who had a constricted circle of friends.

I had some doubts on the count that he didn’t like me as a teacher or a person but even if it was true, who the fuck cared for it, nobody. They were potential young men who I saw the great material to work with. I knew that if they kept doing and not giving up in the process, they would go far. So, I started to pay even more attention towards them. I was channeled myself into the struggle to reach the best possible outcome of it. I guessed they felt it and were enjoying the process. Out of blue, one day I saw a friend request and thinking what a twat could have sent it to me to my surprise I found out it was him, the autumn boy. Later I attested my perception about that he was an autumn boy indeed as he was born in November as I was, coincidence? Was it? More I looked at him I saw how the hardships of winter time melted under the cold breeze of gloomy weather in the late fall. You could say that I am talking nonsense as winter comes after the autumn but not in the reverse order, but it was my outlook and I never come to ubiquitous conformities. The frost of winter had ceased in his eyes and the winds of lightning nights with showers were boiling there with the calmness and steady adjustment. Any pain you might feel went immediately when you just felt his presence around, all the hurt subsided under the gentle breathings of his voice timbre, the soul winds of uncertainty ameliorated. The blood in your veins pulsed with frenzy cutting air of freezing mornings. He roused turbid and torrent feeling inside your skin which summoned a bunch of goose bumps as though you were walking in evening along the turbulent seaside in a stormy weather.

Anyway, when I saw his icon on my screen I sensed the whirl of various emotions. First it was “What do you want from me? Why have you done it?” then it streamed into the beck of malicious joy like “If you combine wine and dinner the new word is winner”. The sensation inside me was the same, but then it melted away as I submerged myself in the daily routine of my doom.

I actually loved my job, teaching languages and being an interpreter was something I could have never imagined in the wildest dreams. As being a little girl I wanted to be a dentist because I hated them so was willing to do their job in order to make people feel pain for the sufferings I had been experiencing. Don’t judge me, I was 4 and I am a Scorpio so was particularly selfish in the childhood. Then I wanted to be a surgeon when I was knocked down by a car, so that I could help people in difficult situations, so, see? I was not that bad. And as any girl in this world (well, the majority of girls) I would like to be an actress or a singer especially when my uncle before he died had told my mum that I had a talent to be a singer. He was a musician so he had all credentials to be believed. He was right indeed as I even attended a musical school where I was also said to have a great voice but under some circumstance I had to quit the idea of being a singer. The mission of devastation was fulfilled at that time, I had an accident after which I had difficulties with my voice pitching. It was concussion with nerves hurtled inside my head. Basically there was a hole inside it as I fell over an enormous stone, blood covered very subtle particle of the ground and my body. I was soaking like mad creek in the early spring, streaming down the hills. I was unable to feel my face it was just numb. I had two more years to live in that way, then after the numbness started to subside. The virulence of the situation was high but I put myself together and continued to live that life and enjoying the happy moments. Getting back to the main subject I dreamt to be anything but not what I was doing then, I had graduated even with a degree not even close to my current occupation.

I had always thought that everything I did was insignificant no matter that I had marvelous childhood with its ups and downs when your mum scraped last coins only to satisfy the basic urges of a 8 year old organism and working for ungodly hours every day to make both ends met, but I wouldn’t dare to complain. I had the means of an excellent education, desire to excel in all subjects but was not smart enough for it. As some of them were beyond my understanding. Well, we aren’t designed to comprehend any matter in this life. Somebody is good at Maths, somebody is good at literature, and somebody was born to fulfill a function of being a mother, somebody to go to the Moon. I was designed to procrastinate mostly rather than to study well even though I graduated from school with not the worst grades.

My job pours some sense to my existence making me believe that I am actually in position to bring the use to this world by giving the knowledge I have in possession and helping others. I remain an intimate with each student as they give me courage, compassion, comfort, share their private thoughts, trust me secrets as though I weren’t a teacher at all, so I really hold dear each of them as it is the hardest part sometimes in life even to be just on well with you trainer left alone to be friends. I bear every day in mind to its value and importance. From time to times I even end up with thoughts that my students are my fortress from feeling suppressed as I did most of the times. Their friendship is my continual solace.

When I accepted the friend request from Haim I did it probably with the hope to become a part of his life as well. By the way, his name derived from Hebrew. People with this name are usually capable, charismatic leaders who undertake large endeavors with great success. They value truth, justice, discipline and maybe quick tempered with those who do not. They would rather focus on large, important issues, and delegate details. He actually fell under this description, so maybe our names define us more than we think.

A name sticks with us from birth until death and although we often have no control over it, our names define us. We can all thank our parents for our names. Oh, I still didn’t introduce myself. My name is Michaela, my name was Hebrew as well. People with this name are excellent at analyzing, understanding, and learning. They tend to be mystics, philosophers, scholars, and teachers. Because they live so much in the mind, they tend to be quiet and introspective, and are usually introverts. When presented with issues, they will see the larger picture. Their solitary thoughtfulness and analysis of people and world events may make them seem aloof, and sometimes even melancholy. Truthfully, it sounds so like me.

Our first conversations with Haim regarded mostly of English and its rules but with each chat we started to go further rather than the English discussions without much notice.

“You know, it is not my first time trying to learn English. Before I was obliged to learn it but now I have my own will to master it.”, he told me one day.

“That’s why you didn’t learn it for the first time, as a small percentage of people has success with language when they are put under the pressure by somebody else and this is the worst tactic parents can do for their offspring. The Mozart method is no longer relevant in this case as the children are going to abominate the subject to the rest of their lives. The majority of children also detest English because at schools teachers do not pay much attention to children’s progress, they are just hurry to finish the program they are required to execute. Nobody is interested in coming up with some extraordinary ideas and show that the educational process could actually be a real fun.” My responses had always been of the skyscraper ones.